


World Turned Upside Down

by nirejseki



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Role Reversal, Canon Characterizations, M/M, Season 1 Spoilers, in the same fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-16
Updated: 2016-10-16
Packaged: 2018-08-22 16:12:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,377
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8292112
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nirejseki/pseuds/nirejseki
Summary: Leonard Snart is forty years old, a professional high-end thief, and quite happy that way, thank you very much. He never intended on becoming the Flash.(my attempt at writing at role reversal AU that is 100% canon compliant pre-season 1)





	

**Author's Note:**

> Response to tumblr prompt: I wish you would write a fic where Len, Mick and Lisa switched places with Barry, Cisco and Caitlin. i.e. Barry is Captain Cold, Len is the Flash, Cisco is Heatwave, Mick is Vibe, Caitlin is Golden Glider, and Lisa is Killer Frost

It's really just a matter of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. 

Len never had any intention of going straight. Thirty years of criminal behavior doesn't exactly set a guy up as a city's hero, you know? But then the stupid particle accelerator had blown up - sabotage, they said, though Len personally was suspicious when they fingered Hartley Rathaway for it - and Len'd gotten his dumb ass hit by lightning, only to spend nine months John Doe-ing it up in a shitty hospital clinic bed because no one knew where he'd been. 

He'd woke up from his coma with a severe case of super-speed. 

On the bright side, he made himself rich in a flash - a phrase he'd later come to regret - but on the not-so-bright side, he was bored as fuck. Sure, money's the end goal of stealing, but there wasn't any adrenaline rush to it any more. Just go, grab, leave, and the cameras never see anything more than a blur. Bo-ring.

Then Mick comes back to Central City, eyes bleeding and hands shaking; he'd been in Keystone during the explosion and caught the fallout. Metahuman, they were calling them, except Mick got visions and the shakes instead of super-speed. Len takes him to STAR Labs, the epicenter of the explosion, and demands they figure out what happened. 

They end up making a trade, Len and Harrison Wells: Wells will try to get Mick stable in exchange for Len letting Wells study his speed, along with his two sidekicks, Cisco Ramon and Caitlin Snow.

Turns out Mick's visions are him communing with the universe's vibrations, of all bizarre things. He's as good a predictor of disaster as you could hope for, and sometimes he sees things in other worlds, too.

Still a pyro, though. Len personally thinks Mick's claims that he sees his visions in the flames best is just wistful thinking. 

Len isn't going to argue, though. Foresight was never Mick's strong point, and that was for the best: he'd always had that terribly fine-tuned empathy hidden under the tough casing he developed in juvie and prison. It makes his foresight - his vibes - into a curse; it hurts him deep inside, having to watch all those people suffer because no one was willing help them. 

So, really, there was only one acceptable way forward.

Len takes his partner out on a long drive, blasting _Good Vibrations_ on repeat the entire way until Mick starts laughing, and at the end of it, he tells Mick that he's gonna take up the superhero biz. Just a little break from the thief work, he emphasizes, since he doesn't want people thinking he'd gone soft, but since thieving has gotten boring anyhow, he needs something exciting to jazz up his life. Up his game. And since he's got super-speed, why not stop those metahuman disasters Mick kept seeing? No reason not to, after all. 

Mick nods, grunting agreement with Len's plans the way he always does, and reaches out to lace their fingers together the way he hadn't since before the fire, before Len left. First time in years. 

So Len figures Mick's cool with his little plan.

Wells disapproves - he's weirdly obsessed with getting Len to go faster and he doesn't really appreciate Len taking the time off to save the city - but Len's not some twenty-something year old fanboy like Cisco and Caitlin are. He does what he wants to do, thank you very much.

Cisco makes him a suit, all in red - despite Len's constant appeals that blue is really much more his color - and he has some early successes. Enough that people notice. People start recording him, talking about him. Blogging about him. 

They call him the Streak.

Len kidnaps Iris West, owner of the most popular metahuman blog in town.

"Holy crap, you're _him_ ," she says excitedly.

"No shit," Len replies. "Now listen here - I'm willing to put up with having to fight all these metahumans, all the disasters, crimes, fires, whatever, okay, but a man's got to draw the line somewhere."

"What do you mean?"

"The _Streak?!_ Really?" he says, crossing his arms. "Do you know how much shit my friends have been giving me over that one?"

She crosses her arms in return. "What's wrong with the Streak?" she asks. "It's a perfectly good description of how everyone sees you."

"You sound like you're Central City, born and raised, right?"

"Uh, yeah. Why?"

"Central City Cougars, last year, fifth game of the season, up against the Coast City Sharks."

"The _Cougar_ game? Um, let me think - oh, you mean the one with the...oh."

"Yeah, the one with the _streaker_. Do you know how many jokes can be made about running faster than people see and being naked? Because I've heard all of 'em, I assure you."

Iris covers her mouth to hide her smile. "I'll think of something else. Can I get an interview?"

"Quit while you're ahead," he advises her, and zips off.

A week later, he grabs her back onto that roof. 

"Hey!" she says cheerfully. "Reconsidered that interview?"

"'The Flash' is _not_ noticeably better than 'the Streak'!"

"Too bad, so sad," Iris taunts. "Interview?"

"I think I hate you," Len says, not without admiration. He always liked a girl with some brass on her. 

"You're welcome to take me out for coffee and tell me all about it," she says.

"And spill my life story while I'm at it?" he snorts. "Not a chance. Also, you're, like, half my age."

"So?"

"And I'm married."

"Well, _that's_ going to disappoint our female readers."

"First off, I’m not that discriminating, thank you. Second off, you can't honestly tell me that girls are suddenly into a guy that's known for going _fast_ ," Len says, crossing his arms in front of him.

Iris snorts, tries to hide it, and ends up giggling. "That's terrible. Is it true?"

"Nah, I'm just screwing with you. But still, fastest man alive might have a nice ring to it, but it's a pretty awful subtitle for the shitty porn knock-off that you seem _determined_ to inspire people to create about me."

Iris has given up on dignity and is laughing, a deep belly laugh that's much more endearing than her suppressed giggles. 

"New name, think about it, will you?" Len says. "Preferably something that _doesn't_ involve implications of nudity this time."

"I'm going to get that interview eventually!" she calls after him.

Much to Len's annoyance, the Flash nickname sticks.

Wells seems kinda weirded out about it too.

They come up against their first non-metahuman opponent. Len's been focusing on stopping murders and avoiding thefts - honor among thieves, you know? - but the guy in question seems to be stealing some pretty dangerous stuff. Lab stuff, high tech; fuck if Len knows what he wants to do with it, but Cisco seemed pretty concerned about it. 

Worse, he's wielding a cold gun that freezes Len up, inside and out, slowing him down and searing even his quick-healing flesh black with frostbite burns. 

"I'm not seeing anything about him," Mick says anxiously. "I've got no vibes, nothing. Something must be blocking me, something about the timeline being screwed up or something. I'm sorry, Lenny."

"It's fine," Len gasps as Mick brushes too close by one of the slowly healing frostbite burns, wishing painkillers still worked on him. "I'll handle it."

Turns out the cold gun was made by Cisco in a fit of paranoia. Len congratulates him for reasonable thinking, because Len _is_ a professional criminal, but Wells kinda goes apeshit on him. He says he won't risk Len getting hurt which, uh, _what?_ Len is getting a little creeped out by Wells' weird half condescending paternalism, half obsessive crush on Len. Or at least on Len’s speed. Len gets that some people go a little crazy about their research, but sometimes he wonders if Wells remembers that he's still a human being. 

Cisco packs his bags after that, which Len honestly can't blame him for; Wells has been positively manic recently, with Cisco taking the brunt of it. Len makes sure to stuff the bottom of Cisco’s duffle with cash in non-sequential bills when he's not looking - super-speed is the _best_ \- and wishes him well. He'll miss having Cisco around; he's an amazing tech. Fighting bad guys is going to be a lot tougher without him. 

Len goes up against the newly dubbed Captain Cold - he regrets ever giving Cisco Iris' number, because they seem to use it exclusively to brainstorm dumb names for his opponents - and...well. 

He's a _kid_.

Okay, not a kid. Mid-twenties, pretty hot if you like twinks (and who doesn't? Man, if he wasn't a supervillain...). But, more to the point, he's a freaking _sweetheart_. He looks honestly distressed by his stealing and fighting against Len; he says he wishes he didn't have to do this, but he doesn't have a choice. He has to arm up to fight a speedster, because it was a speedster that killed his mom over a decade ago.

Len explains that this "man in yellow" couldn't have been him: he only got his powers last year. 

Also, yellow? No, thanks. Red's barely tolerable as it is. 

"I know that," Cold says earnestly, brown eyes big and wet. "But if you exist, then maybe others do as well. Maybe something else caused the other guy. I'm on to something now, something that might get me the answers I've been looking for my entire life, the answers that I need to save an innocent man from jail, and to get these answers, I _need_ this tech. If there was any other way, I'd take it, but I'm out of options. I'm so sorry."

What the hell is Len supposed to do with a villain that apologizes for stealing?! Fucking hell. _Len_ doesn't even apologize for stealing, and he's the _hero_ of this stupid newspaper reel.

"Fine," Len says, rubbing his eyes. "Take it and go, but seriously, you need to make sure that stuff doesn't blow up or something. It could take out half the city."

"I know that!" Cold says indignantly. "I'm a scientist, you know."

"I know too many scientists for that to be comforting," Len says dryly. "What you need ain't a scientist. It's an engineer. Actually..."

Maybe Len's gonna regret giving Cisco's number to a would-be supervillain, but damnit, all Cisco's ever wanted was to help people, and he deserves a chance to do that without Wells shitting all over him. Maybe he can help this Cold guy out.

Len opts not to tell Wells the details, just out of sheer embarrassment. Mick still laughs at him about it for, like, an hour. He does get a kick out of Len's description of Cold, though. He knows Len's weak spot for bleeding heart of golds that take a walk on the illegal side. And he's _very_ appreciate of Len's description of Cold's...assets. 

Then the goddamn _army_ gets involved with bomb-girl, and then there's a guy made of metal, and after him, there's lighting man...

It's like they get weirder every time! Len has no idea how so many people got affected by the Accelerator explosion, but he's happy that they've opted to come sequentially. Or at least that Mick's visions do.

Though the less said about the Bivolo incident, the better. Len has a lot of unresolved anger issues, okay? It's not his fault he prefers to take things cool. Suppression and denial have always worked _very well_ for him.

Mick is almost sickeningly smug after that. Apparently a few bruises are a welcome trade for Len screaming about how Mick needs to take care of himself because every time he gets hurt it breaks Len's heart, and also apparently Mick has a thing for Len being aggressive and over-protective. Caitlin ends up directing him at Bivolo by implying things about him and Mick; Len just tears off after him, which makes Caitlin grin at him for a week. 

Then, just when things seem to be calming down and Mick's not having vibes, just when Len starts talking about maybe taking a vacation away from meta stuff, doing a job or something, the speedster in yellow shows up. As far as Len can tell, he's there just to taunt Len and fuck up shit.

Len's steaming by the end of it, though. Yellow-boy - Iris suggests "Reverse Flash" over their now-weekly cups of coffee, which Len has no idea when they started or why he continues and Iris laughs at his suggestion of possible mind-control - seems to know a hell of a lot more about Len than Len is comfortable with. 

He's talking stalker levels of knowledge.

Also, he was getting his ass handed to him. If it wasn't for fire-Ronnie, who turns out to have been Caitlin's presumed-dead fiancé, he doesn't know how it would've turned out. 

Yes, Caitlin's presumed-dead fiancé. 

Len's life is _such_ a goddamn soap-opera nowadays.

Wells makes a plan for Len to get his speed up so he can fight the man in yellow; it sounds exhausting, but if Len wants round two to go in his favor, he's not sure what else he can do, so he agrees.

That evening, Mick wakes up with a gasp.

"Vibe?" Len says sleepily. 

"Yeah," Mick says, breathing out through his nose. "That anti-Flash task force."

"The _cops_?" Len says with a snort, yawning as he pulls the blanket around him. Maybe he can go back to sleep. "You're kidding. They're no threat."

"Not to you," Mick says. "That kid of yours, Captain Cold?"

"Shit, the man in yellow," Len says, suddenly awake. He sits up. "Cold will definitely be on his tail, especially after he stole the tachyon prototype."

"The cops will have worked out some tech that'll stand up against Cold's gun by now," Mick says grimly. "It's...not good. What happens. He's a badge himself; Cold, I mean. Science side."

Len's chest feels tight all of a sudden. "Only thing people hate more than a cop is a cop gone lawless. Everyone'll hate him - his friends, his family - and he won't last a week behind bars."

"No kidding."

Len reaches for his phone. 

Cisco gears up as Cold's sidekick with a matching heat gun that makes Mick blow up Len's phone with texts of admiration. Possibly sexts. 

"I think Mick likes your gun more than he likes me," Len bitches to Cisco as they wait outside Mercury Labs for Cold to finish investigating. They’ve fought off the cops and stopped Mick's future-vibe, but Cold's not done yet. He's stubborn. Len appreciates that in a guy. 

"Well, she is beautiful," Cisco says with a grin, looking down at his gun lovingly. "You know, I never would've dared use something like this if it wasn't for Mick and his fire-safety lessons."

Len snorts. "You mean his excuse to light things on fire?"

"In fairness, the demo about why you don't throw water on a grease fire was, uh, _inspiring_."

"That's Mick for you."

"I found it!" Cold says, running out with a big grin on his face only to stop cold - pun intended - at the sight of Len.

Len waves. 

"I told you I got us a ride out," Cisco says proudly.

Cold sighs, but turns to Len. "Is it true that you're the one that warned us about the squad?"

"Technically, it was Mick's vision."

"You texted," Cisco says.

Len rolls his eyes. "Oh, sure, I texted. Like that's the tough part."

"You're such a good person," Cold says, eyes shining.

Len cannot deal with this adorable puppy. "Right. What've you found, Cold?"

"The blueprints for the tachyon device. I think the man in yellow is using it to boost his speed - or possibly to regain it..."

"Regain it?"

"Well, based on what happened to you when you went up against the lightning guy -"

"How do you even know about that?"

"I text with Caitlin," Cisco volunteers.

"I'm see I'm going to have to have a talk with her about HIPAA violations," Len says dryly. 

"...probably. Anyway, I've figured out -"

"No science stuff, please. I didn't even finish high school, okay?"

"Psssh, you're super smart and you know it," Cisco says.

"Anyway, I figured out a lot," Cold says with a grin. "Thanks."

"My pleasure. What's your name, anyway?"

"Oh! I'm Barry Allen."

Len blinks. "Wait, Doc Allen's kid? Henry Allen?"

"You know my dad?"

"Sure, ran into him in my last stint at Iron Heights," Len says, nodding.

"...last...stint..?"

"Did you forget to tell him I'm a criminal?" Len asks Cisco.

"You're a hero _now_ ," Cisco says defensively.

"I wear a mask because there are _open warrants_ for me, Cisco."

"Holy crap, really?" Barry says.

"This is just a part time job between the thieving," Len assures him. "There's just so goddamn many metas, the hero gig's just taking up a lot of time, is all."

"You're a good guy," Barry says, smiling broadly. "No matter what you say."

“I am _not_.”

“You really –”

"Let's talk about how we're going to get the anti-Flash task force off our ass," Cisco says quickly. 

"Theater," Len says.

"Theater?"

Len grins. "I want the task force off my ass, too. Best way to do that would be to show them a big boss fight that they're not needed for."

"How do we get that?"

"You're gonna kidnap Caitlin," Len says.

"We wouldn't!" Barry protests.

"She's already in on it."

"...I'm listening."

One massive televised showdown later, the cops are applauding the Flash, the "supervillains" Captain Cold and Heatwave made their escape after their dramatic defeat, and Iris may have parlayed her on-the-scene live-blogging into a real job at Central City Picture News. 

She'll have to live without finding out Captain Cold and Heatwave's real names, though, no matter how much she pouts.

Mick may or may not be doing some merchandising off of it. Len isn't asking. Len _isn't asking_.

And because Len can't get a week off, next up is Hartley Rathaway. Hartley isn't a meta, but he's bitter, incredibly bitter. Len's always felt bad for the guy - his dad wasn't too thrilled to find out about his kid's less than mainstream sexuality either - but he's also a little offended by Hartley's assumption about his relationship with Wells, because, uh, _no_. Wells is neither a father figure or a romantic interest for him, thank you very much.

Len doesn't much like the implications of the accusations, though. 

He listens to Hartley's stories and plays it off with a grin for Wells' benefit, but he grabs Caitlin and Iris and Mick and takes them for a nice _long_ run to a nice beautiful cliff face in the middle of nowhere to have a huddle-up about the issue.

After searching them for bugs, which gets him a slap from Iris, but since he does actually find a few, it's still apparently necessary. 

So creepy. _So creepy_.

Len's starting to have a bad feeling about...a lot of things. But luckily he has a clairvoyant husband, an investigative reporter and an extremely nosy doctor on his side. They're going to get to the bottom of this.

Their investigation is almost immediately derailed by the appearance of a teleporter - of course, it turns out that Shawna's a darling and once Len extracts her from the Family, he sends her to Barry because damn if that kid doesn't need all the help he can get and Len isn't always available as a getaway driver-slash-car. 

More disturbingly, there's also a gorilla.

Not, like, "muscle" gorilla.

 _Gorilla_ gorilla.

Super-smart _telepathic_ gorilla.

What the fuck even.

Caitlin ends up breaking Hartley out of where Wells had stored him - which turns out to be a cell in the goddamn pipeline, which Len and Mick are super not okay with? Nimbus they killed, of course, and Woodward and Bivolo they dropped off at the CCPD with a lead cell and a blindfold respectively, but at _no point_ did they okay something like _that_ , because solitary sucks balls and they'd know - and she ends up running away with him to join up with Barry, a Cisco-made golden gun at her side. 

They've apparently added hunting down her burning presumed-dead fiancé to their collection of supervillain quests.

Mick is so disturbed by the imprisonment and solitary and lack of any accountability that he takes a half hour before he gets around to asking if he's allowed to try to bang the guy who lights on fire.

Len tells him no, mostly for Caitlin's sake.

Barry's steadily growing group has officially been dubed the Central City Rogues, per Iris' enthusiastic reporting. Barry seems very confused by his nomination by Len as "person who adopts sad puppy metahumans" and also now chief supervillain of Central City.

But only because Len refuses to have a gorilla as his main supervillain. That's just weird. 

Barry’s still taking everybody in, which is all Len cares about, and Barry's happy to help their investigation.

Despite the extra minds, they still don't manage to figure out how any of the pieces fit together - Wells is working with the man in yellow? Why? How? - until Mark Mardon launches a goddamn tsunami in the direction of Iris because her dad killed Mardon's brother and Len runs so fast he accidentally travels back in time. 

Mick is weirdly quiet after Len stops the tsunami before it ever happens. Len thinks it's because of the revelation that time travel - never Mick's favorite trope - is real, but he _keeps_ being quiet afterwards. 

Time to earn some husband brownie points. 

Len calls the day a vacation day and speeds Mick off to watch some houses burn down, but even that doesn't cheer Mick up.

Shit.

That means they'll have to _talk_ about it.

"Um," Len says. "Uh."

"Wow, you're even worse at this feelings shit than you used to be," Mick observes.

Len buries his head in his hands. "I'm losing my touch," he moans. "It's been so long since I've conned anyone, I've forgotten how to be sincere along with it."

"I think Wells killed me," Mick says abruptly. 

"...what."

"Before you went back in time. I was poking around the trap downstairs and - it turns out it was a recording - I found out about it and then he was there; _he’s_ the Reverse Flash. He vibrated his hand really fast until it was buzzing like a saw, and he..."

Mick's hand rises up to his chest. 

"And he killed you," Len says. His voice is flat. He can't even imagine...if he hadn't abruptly developed the ability to time travel, he would have come back and found...

"- Len? Lenny! Snap out of it!"

Len looks at Mick.

"Uh, Lenny...your eyes are...uh…crackling with electricity..."

"I'm going to kill him," Len says, very slowly and deliberately. His voice comes out strangely slow to his ears, like it's slurring. Vibrating vocal cords, probably. Len hadn't really bothered with it until now. 

"I believe you," Mick says cautiously. "I really believe you. Please stop vibrating fast enough to generate electricity."

Len focuses and swallows his anger, pulling it into his chest and freezing it solid like he always did. He doesn't want to scare Mick, after all. He nearly died - no, don't think of that. Let it freeze into a solid ball of ice, right there where your heart is supposed to be.

"...I hate it when you do that."

"You wanted calm, I'm calm," Len replies steadily.

"You're not calm," Mick says. "You're just cold. And _homicidal_."

"That, yes."

"Listen, Lenny. We need to do something about Wells, I don't disagree, but we - you - need to plan this out carefully, okay?"

"Of course," Len says. He's not sure why Mick is suddenly talking like there's a loaded fuse in the area. Len is _fine_. So he made a deal and took Mick somewhere where there's a speedster that wants to kill him, and now they're stuck in a situation where they can't extract themselves because Len got caught up with the superhero thing and forgot to think about how low and nasty humanity really is.

Len is _fine_.

Mick can stop looking so worried and fussy. He's the one that nearly died; Len should be comforting _him_.

Len's phone buzzes. He pulls it out and scans it.

"What's up?" Mick asks.

"The Trickster strikes again," Len reads indifferently. "It appears he's broken the old Trickster out of prison."

"Jesse James?" Mick says, frowning. "I remember reading about him. Twenty years back, now; he killed a lot of people."

"I remember."

"Probably planning on doing it again."

"That's right."

"...are we going to go back to Central and stop him?"

Len shrugs. "They're going to burn another building," he says instead. "Want to stay and watch?"

"They've already burned three," Mick says. "I'm fine."

"You'll enjoy it."

"People will _die_."

"Since when do we care?" Len asks, leaning back. "I think we've gotten too invested in this job. Might be better to pull back for a bit."

"Not with the _Trickster_ , Len. Central City needs the Flash, or there won't be much of a Central City."

Len doesn't move.

Mick reaches out and grabs his shoulder. "Lenny. I want to help."

"Then we'll help," Len says, getting up. "But they won't deserve it. Not one of them." 

"Lenny -"

But Len's got him and they're moving through space as fast as a bolt of lightning.

Maybe it's because Len's upset and distracted, but Tricksters 1 and 2 manage to get the jump on him and slap a bomb on his wrist that'll go off when he slows down. Len's half tempted to go find Wells and give him a nice, slow hug, which he recognizes is a sign of his suicidal ideation rearing its ugly head again and he promised Mick he'd talk to him before doing anything stupid, so instead he runs - and runs - and runs –

Wells ends up explaining how to phase through something via radio and the bracelet gets left behind, exploding harmlessly in a deserted parking lot. 

He defeats the Tricksters, injecting everyone with the antidote (separate needles, of course; he's a queer jailbird that lived through the 80s - needle etiquette's been branded into his brain) and then running them both back to prison, but the victory doesn't come with the glow of success it usually does. He's still cold inside. 

He nearly lost Mick. 

He nearly _lost Mick_.

"I'm calling your sister," Mick says, rubbing his eyes, even though Len is fine. Just a little clingy tonight is all. "She'll help get you out of this mood; she always does."

"Ask her about the manuscripts," Len murmurs, pulling Mick closer and burrowing under the blankets. 

"Manuscripts? What manuscripts?"

"Her heist. She was after some manuscripts," Len clarifies.

"You haven't talked to her in a _year_ , how would you know?"

"She said she was!" Len says defensively. It's not his fault that he keeps forgetting to account for the nine months of coma! "Christie's was bringing in some really old stuff, illuminated manuscripts, to hold their temperature-controlled room for an auction back in December. Uh, last December. You know what I mean."

"...last December?"

"Yeah. Winter descriptions in the freezer room. It was, you know. Thematic."

"Len, _which_ branch of Christie's?"

"The one on Sylvester, you know the one. We've hit it three times before."

"Shit," Mick says. 

"Why?"

"Last _December_ , Len," Mick emphasizes.

Len blinks at him, wondering if there was a point to this.

"Lenny, the metahuman gene is _genetic_ ," Mick says. "And you're telling me your sister was in Central City on the night of the explosion?"

Len frowns. "I've texted her," he protests. "She said she's fine. Said everything was cool."

"Have you mentioned that you're the Flash?"

"Uh..."

"I'm going to call her," Mick decides. "You, my useless non-communicative bastard of a husband, are going to sleep."

Len pointedly curls closer. If Mick thinks he's leaving this bed, he's got another thing coming.

"...I'll call her tomorrow," Mick concedes. 

Tomorrow, however, is consumed by bees.

Len has no words.

 _Bees_.

"What type of honey would mechanical bees make?" he asks Cisco over the phone.

"Tell me that's a theoretical question."

"Only about the honey."

"I hate you."

Luckily, Len doesn't need Cisco's assistance in jury-rigging a low-range EMP device. He's made them before. He's _escaped prison_ on the basis of them before.

Admittedly, both Tina McGee and Wells are super pissed with him as they try to fix the damage his EMP did, but he likes to point out that they're _alive_. So there.

While they're busy fighting the bees, Mick calls the Rogues instead and lets them case the joint the way Len should have from the beginning.

It's Barry that ends up finding the secret room - and the future.

Len runs them to the cliff-face for the update. 

"- so he _did_ kill my mom, running back in time with the future-me," Barry concludes, taking a bite of his sandwich. "But because of how that affected the timeline, I never became the Flash. His only chance to get back to his own time was to make _you_ the Flash - and fast enough to get him back. Also, where did you get these sandwiches? They're amazing."

"I made 'em," Mick grunts.

"Super good," Iris says. 

She and Barry were _finally_ on speaking terms again after the little blow-up where it turned out that the notorious Captain Cold was her _foster brother_ and she'd somehow missed it. They'd apparently been doing a lot of research together now, including a visit to Starling that involved finding the real Harrison Wells' skeleton.

Thorough investigation, well done, excellent fact gathering, but seriously, that's just plain old creepy.

"Where is this place, anyway?" Cisco asks. "I didn't know we had any cliffs around Central."

"It's about 30 miles out," Len says with a shrug. "That's why Mick brought sandwiches for the picnic."

"You have been watching his blood sugar, right?" Caitlin asks Mick, who nods. "I seriously think he's hypoglycemic in addition to the calorie requirements of being a speedster..."

"Is it a significant spot, though?" Cisco asks. "Meaningful? What made you pick here?"

"Far enough that standard bugs will be out of range, then I looked for a place to sit down," Len says. "That’s literally it. I'm a speedster. I can do that."

"Cool," Cisco says. "I'll take that."

Len pokes at him. "You should use more heat puns."

"There's no way to say something's hot when you mean that it's cool."

"I can think of at least _three_ -"

" _Anyway_ , back to evil Wells, I think Cisco and I figured out what he's doing with the tachyons," Barry tells Len. 

"I don't care," Len says. "Just tell me how to kill him."

"We need to unmask him first," Barry says reasonably.

"We really don't," Len says.

"I need his confession to prove that my father is innocent," Barry says stubbornly.

"Fine," Len says. "He can confess while I'm wringing his little -"

"Um, not to interrupt imminent homicide," Iris says, staring at her phone. "But apparently Eddie's been arrested?"

Len groans and goes back to Central to catch a doppelganger meta. The city never sleeps and neither does the goddamn metahuman population. Len makes sure to catch their whole confrontation on video and Iris' boyfriend (cop boyfriend - she has such bad taste) Eddie gets released. Hannibal Bates is dropped off with the CCPD with a note pinned to his chest that they might want to consider a period of confinement and possibly probation involving assisting sketch artists in identifying culprits.

The note was Barry's idea. He's such a goody two-shoes.

He's also a _naive_ goody-two shoes, since despite Len's precautions it turns out Wells has had cameras in Barry's house for over ten years and various slip-ups have meant that he manages to realize that Barry, at least, is onto him. 

Wells is, irritatingly, still faster and stronger than Len. He kidnaps Eddie, but Len managed to keep him from murdering Mick, Iris, or the Rogues, which Len counts as a win. Sure, Barry's going to need a new gun - like all speedsters, Wells realizes the threat of Barry's cold gun and went for it first, though his focus on the tech itself obscured his focus on Barry, probably saving Barry's life.

"He took Eddie," Iris says tightly. "It's not a win."

"We'll get him back," Len says. "Wells - Eobard Thawne - won't kill him; if Eddie dies, Eobard's whole family line doesn't get born."

"Which is _not_ an acceptable solution to this problem," Iris says quickly.

Len shrugs. Seems like a good suggestion to him, but Iris is attached. To a cop. _Such_ bad taste, but hey, people have said the same about him and his arsonist. "First we have to catch him."

"First we have to _find_ him," Cisco says glumly. "I'm not having any luck - I could have tracked him via the tachyon emitter in his wheelchair, but he ditched that."

"Let me look," Len says.

"You're usually the first one to say you don't know science," Cisco says skeptically.

"He may not know science," Mick says. He has rings under his eyes; his vibing has been going crazy the last few days, but he hasn't been able to understand any of it. He says the timeline is nearing some sort of inflection point. "But he knows paranoia."

"What does that mean?" Barry asks.

"He bugged all of you," Mick says.

"I did _not_ ," Len says. "No bugs. Just trackers."

"You did _not_!" Caitlin exclaims.

"I would have noticed," Cisco protests.

"Can we find Eddie with them?" Barry asks, focusing on the issue at hand and threading his fingers through Iris' for a quick squeeze.

"Yes," Len says. "But we need a plan."

"What are you thinking?"

"Oh, I'm thinking something – unexpected,” Len smiles.

Eobard is expecting their counterattack. He's expecting Len's speed, Barry's repaired cold gun, Cisco's heat gun, Shawna's teleportation, Hartley's sound wave gloves, Mick's visions and vibrations, and even Iris with her colt –

But he's not expecting Lisa, hair bleached white and dyed gold, blue lips painted red, frost crackling between her fingertips.

"I've been avoiding Central City because there was a superhero spoiling everybody's fun," Lisa says, pouting at Len over Eobard's unconscious body. "You could've told me."

"You could've come to challenge me," Len points out.

"Not everyone's a crazy adrenaline junkie like you."

"Not like you to be scared."

"Not scared, _cautious_. And at any rate, I remind you, you could have called."

Len sniffs. "Why would I call? You didn't feel the need to visit me when I was in a _coma_."

"No one _told_ me you were in a coma."

"No excuse."

"Jerk."

"Trainwreck."

"What do we _do_ with him?" Barry says, poking at Eobard's body with his foot.

Len glances at Hartley. "Let's put him in the pipeline. Seems fitting." 

Eobard, when he wakes up, takes fairly little prodding to explain his evil plan.

"E.T. go home," Len mutters and Cisco dissolves into nervous giggles.

"Len...if what he's saying is true, you could save my mother," Barry says tremulously. 

"Maybe," Len says, meaning 'no way in hell'. He feels bad for Barry and all, but he's not risking his life with Mick for nothing. 

Barry nods in understanding, but his eyes well with tears and Shawna vanishes him away. Iris follows, supporting a shaken Eddie; the other Rogues trail out after them, Lisa sliding one arm through Cisco's and the other through Caitlin's with a flirtatious smile. 

Mick and Len stay behind.

"Don't let him convince you to do something stupid," Mick says.

Len looks at Eobard for a long moment. "I won't."

Mick nods and leaves. 

"You need to help me get home," Eobard says arrogantly. "Or your friends will never find peace."

"You made a mistake," Len says. "You assume that I care."

Eobard scoffs and crosses his arms. "Fine. Let me out, and we'll settle this one-on-one." He smirks. "Or you planning on shooting me?"

"Why would I shoot you? You're faster than a bullet."

"So a fight it is."

Len pulls down the keypad and types in some numbers.

Eobard tenses his muscles, lightning start to crackle around him.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you," Len says.

Eobard frowns when the door doesn't open.

"What are you doing?" he says suspiciously. 

"You killed Mick," Len says. 

"What?"

"Before I fixed the timeline. You killed him."

"And, what? You're upset about it?"

"No," Len says. "When it comes to Mick, and people hurting Mick, I have no heart. Which is why I'm not going to fight you. I'm just draining all the oxygen out of your cell."

"You can't do that!" Eobard exclaims, the beginning glimmers of real fear in his eyes. "You'll never get the evidence to free Barry's father!"

"You confessed to me," Len says, voice calm. "The recording equipment is faulty. But, if necessary, I – meaning the Flash, not Leonard Snart – will testify in court on an anonymous basis to your, ah, dying declaration."

"You can't do this!"

Len smiles. It's hard and vacant and cold, and he knows if his sister saw him now she would instinctively cower before him, because it's his father's smile on his face. 

When it comes to protecting Mick, he can't bring himself to care.

"Watch me."

In the end they don't need the Flash to testify, because Eobard left Barry a confession - and STAR Labs - in his will. His plan had always been about Barry being the Flash, never Len, and he'd never bothered to update it. 

Henry Allen is released from prison. Barry, after embracing him for about five minutes, introduces him to the Flash. 

There's about five minutes of sputtering "Snart?!" in sheer disbelief. 

Len smirks. 

Mick puts his hand on his shoulder.

"Doc Allen," Len says. "Welcome to Team Flash."

"And the Rogues," Cisco says.

"And the Rogues," Len concedes. 

"Welcome home, dad," Barry says, not bothering to wipe the tears off his cheeks. "Hope you're ready to be superhero support staff."

"Technically, Barry," Len says thoughtfully, "you're a super _villian_."

"Shut up," Barry says.


End file.
